


Trembled, Offering

by icarus_chained



Series: Weregild 'verse [8]
Category: Norse Mythology, Supernatural
Genre: Coercion, Family, Freedom, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet piece before the coming storm. Loki, Gabriel, and the use and abuses of power. Gabriel does not fit Loki's understanding of how power works</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trembled, Offering

Loki wondered, sometimes, if Gabriel knew the stories told about him. If the archangel knew what was said of First-father's children, if he knew the figure he made in the stories whispering from the south. Loki wondered if Gabriel had known, those long, long years ago, as he stood above a screaming god, and asked, and offered, and took. Wondered if Gabriel had known how terrified Loki had been, and why.

Because the Messenger was the Giant Killer. The Messenger was the Whisperer, and the Trickster, and the Deceiver, who wielded words as swords, and laid low a nation drowning in their own blood, until First-father washed their remains away. Because the Messenger was the Slayer of Giants, at whose word brother fell on brother, and Loki already lay in the chains forged from a murdered son. Gabriel, who had walked among them in their own guise, and who now would wear Loki's face.

And the Grace. The searing touch of it, the vastness, the burning weight. The fire from Heaven, searing him clean, healing him, taking him, devouring him. He could not have fought it. For all his threats, his promises, his sly wranglings, he could not have fought that. Not Gabriel. Not and won. Not in time.

Loki wondered. He had to. He must. Gabriel must have known. Gabriel must have felt his fear, must have felt the screaming as Loki fought, in those first desperate, drowning hours, from fear and terror and for the sake of children who would die as their father's face whispered words of hate as they fell on each other. Gabriel must have seen the terror in Loki. Must have known its source. Gabriel must have known, because the first things Gabriel did were to alleviate it. The first things Gabriel had done were to wipe it away. Not the words, not the cause, but the _fear_. Gabriel had taken a god screaming into his breast, and acted heart-sick to calm him.

To this day, Loki didn't understand. That was not how fear _worked_. That was not how power worked. To wring fear from him was to use it to command him, to use it to force him. To hold his children, his life, his freedom, above his head and command his obediance for their sake. And surely Gabriel, surely First-father's son, the Messenger, the Giant Killer, surely he must have understood that. Surely he must have known what it was in his power to do.

Not to cradle Sigyn, not to soothe her to sleep, to wipe away the burns from her hands, the scars from her mind, the memory of her sons changed and torn before her eyes, the memory of her husband screaming beneath her hands. Not to carry her away, to lay her to rest where no god could touch, and let her slip into sleep where no pain could ever reach.

Not to go to Hel. Not to offer a Giant's dark daughter the respect owed a queen, to bow before her and ask her leave for things she could not change, had he not offered to let her. Not to bare his chest, to bare his heart and his grace, before the frozen touch of her hand, and not flinch despite the faltering of courage he shouldn't need in the face of her.

Not to go to Loki's sons. Not to bear the terror of the seas to touch a Serpent strong enough to drown even him, not to balance himself poised and terrified between iron water and the scaled, towering cliffs of Loki's son, to let Jormungandr speak to the god prisoned in Gabriel's chest. Not to kneel on an island beside a bound wolf, and shed his blood to cast away a sword, to tear apart a ribbon. Not to lay himself open beneath Fenrir's jaws, and trust only to a god he'd bound to spare him.

Not that. Not any of that. That was not how power was used, not how fear was wielded. But Loki might still have thought it so, might still have believed the grand gestures towards trust a part of some more subtle plan, were it not ... Were it not for the smaller things, given seemingly without thought by the archangel in his breast, with laughter or warmth or resignation or embarrassment ...

Like the choice of destination. Like the world spread open beneath Loki's feet by an archangel's power, by an archangel's flight, and the laughing thing in Gabriel's heart that listened for the surge of curiosity from the god he bore, for the rush of desire, for the surge of lust or avarice that guided them across the world. 

Like the rueful laughter in Gabriel's mind, threaded through Loki's, as they ran from some temple or some mire, some shining thing pressed in their hand, and only the archangel to guide them away from the vengeance that once the Aesir would have thrown Loki to. 

Like the vicious grinning in the archangel's heart as he offered Loki the echoes of past crimes against him, and laid his grace in Loki's hand to redress them as he saw fit. Like the offer of grace and power and the twisting of the world between Loki's fingers, for no better reason than to feel the restful surge in Loki's heart, the rush of vindication and the softening of old fears. Not because the causes were any less real, but because of the tacit promise that now the archangel would bear them with him, would offer his power to stave them off. Simply because Loki might need it.

Like the gifts for his children. Small things, offered seemingly without thought. 

Flowers for Hel, not cut but growing, living in little bundles of grace and earth, offered with a cavalier bow to brighten the cold darkness of her realm. Given on a whim, it seemed, except Loki felt the faltering in the archangel's heart as she stared at them, as she reached with trembling hands, as she smiled. Loki felt the staggering in the archangel's chest, and the swamping surge of some fierce, protective thing that Loki knew only because it lived in his own chest.

Lights for Jor, singing glass bubbles that shone, won from nymphs in the Mediterranean on an archangel's wager, that followed Loki's son drifting down to the dark chasms of the sea where few living things ventured, to rest along the boundaries of the vast tracks of the Midgardsormen's coils and sing to him shining in the silence. Baubles, won for a dare, but Loki hadn't understood at the time the intentness of Gabriel's gaming, the determination in his heart, until he watched the winking gems sink beneath an iron sea, and saw the awe in Jormungandr's vast eyes as he watched them fall.

Blood, for Fenrir. And here, oh, here, Loki had seen before it began, seen the moment Gabriel chose, simply because Gabriel _should not_. Because these were not the games of First-father's son, not the games of the soft thing inside the archangel's chest, the gentle thing that Loki had come to know. But oh, but oh, there was darkness yet in the Messenger. Dark things left from the days of blood and water and iron, from the searing thing that had stolen Loki for itself, from the killer lurking unwilling in an archangel's chest. 

And that killer knew Fenrir. Knew Loki's son, as it knew Loki himself. That killer offered Fenrir the world in his turn, offered him the quiet, savage spaces, and the blood of hunters to feast upon. The blood of laughing men who would watch an animal bound, chained, wounded and torn. An echo of old crimes, much as he had offered Loki, and for all the faltering in the archangel's chest at the savagery of it, he did not flinch from the blood between Fenrir's jaws, from the savage satisfaction in feral eyes. For all the trembling in Gabriel's chest, he did not flinch from the vengeance he offered Loki's son.

This was not how fear was used. This was not how power was won. These things offered to Loki, to his children, held out even if they sowed a tremble in the archangel's hands, even if they set a shuddering in his chest. Held out not for gain, not for reward, but for the soft shock in Hel's face, the stunned delight in Jor's eyes, the savage satisfaction in Fenrir's mien. For the surging of love in Loki's chest, for the softening of his fears. First-father's son, who had won a prize wrung in terror, and spent centuries offering all he could in return. The Slayer of Giants, who had once walked in blood until the Heavens washed it away, who offered now his own blood to appease the sons and daughter of a Jotun.

This was not how fear was used. This was not how power granted by a Jotun's fear was used. Surely the archangel must know that. Surely First-father's son must understand.

Yes. Yes, he must. Yes, he did. Yes, Gabriel felt the creeping terrors in Loki's breast, yes, Gabriel had felt the agony of the god he crushed screaming to his chest in the darkness of a cave, all those long years ago. Yes, Gabriel knew.

Not ignorance, then, the source of this soft, staggering thing in an archangel's heart, the source of the trembling as power and grace cradled a god beneath his breast. Not ignorance. Choice. A hundred, a thousand choices, great and small, and each set to the easing of fear. Each set to the returning of choice, and the surrender of powers that no god had the power to take, should Gabriel not allow it. A thousand choices, each tiny, each inconsequential. Each vast. Each huge. The smallest of them the greatest, for what it meant. For what it showed.

Yes, Gabriel knew. Yes, Gabriel chose. Yes, Gabriel gave. With trembling hands, and staggered heart. The Messenger, the Killer of Giants, to the god he had bought, and the children of giants that lay beneath his hand. Gabriel, with that soft, tentative smile, and the knowledge in his heart that family was only another step to betrayal. Gabriel, who offered anyway, because some soft, desperate thing in his heart demanded it. Loki did not understand. He never would.

For the wonder in his children's eyes, and the surging in his own chest ... he never had to.


End file.
